Microsoft AppSource

Consulting Services Listing Guidelines

Published January 20, 2020

Contents
SaaS apps, marketplaces, and services............................................................................................................... 2

Introducing consulting services ............................................................................................................................ 2

Eligible consulting services...................................................................................................................................... 2

Eligible partners ........................................................................................................................................................... 3

Promotion of consulting services ......................................................................................................................... 5

Countries supported .................................................................................................................................................. 7

Languages supported ................................................................................................................................................ 7

Next steps and what to expect .............................................................................................................................. 7

Additional Resources ................................................................................................................................................. 8

Testimonials from Partners ..................................................................................................................................... 8

As a System Integrator (SI) in the Microsoft Partner Network

(MPN), you can market your eligible consulting services on
Microsoft AppSource and connect with customers.

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SaaS apps, marketplaces, and services

As organizations adopt cloud solutions, they are also changing the way they buy apps and
services. The online application marketplaces are becoming an increasingly important part of the
customer journey and the market for business-to-business eCommerce is forecasted to
compound by 10% annually through 20231. At the core of this change is a need for convenience
and autonomy – an increasing number of business buyers find web more convenient for buying
and 70%2 of business leaders want a self-service marketplace to research, deploy, and manage
apps.

More than 3 million business users a month frequent Microsoft’s commercial marketplace –
Azure Marketplace and AppSource. AppSource helps customers to discover and deploy apps
that run on the Microsoft Dynamics 365, Office 365, Power BI and Power Apps platforms. These
users are often looking for expert services to help customize the platforms and apps for their
needs. As they explore a variety of platform and app options, they typically want services that
help them quickly scope out or evaluate a solution before committing further. Engagements of
finite duration that provide predictable pricing and well-defined outcomes are best suited for
their needs in these early stages.

Introducing consulting services

With the goal of connecting business users swiftly with the expert services they need, AppSource
supports the listing of consulting services offerings from Systems Integrator (SI) partners of
Microsoft. These consulting services offerings are customer-specific engagements, fixed in scope
and duration, can be fixed price or free, and have a defined outcome. Business users can easily
request to be contacted by partners in a friction-free manner. Partners receive a notification in
their CRM system and aim to respond to users within 48hrs.

Eligible consulting services

Consulting services offerings need to be for services and solutions based on Microsoft Dynamics
365, Power BI, Power Apps, or Power Automate. The offerings must also be for one of the
following five services types:

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Source – a commissioned study by Forrester Consulting on behalf of Microsoft, November 2019
2
Source – a commissioned study by Forrester Consulting on behalf of Microsoft, November 2019
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 1. Assessment: An evaluation of a customer’s environment to determine the applicability of
a solution and provide an estimate of cost and timing.

2. Briefing: An introduction to a solution or a consulting service to draw customer interest

using frameworks, demos, and customer examples.

3. Implementation: A complete installation that results in a fully working solution. We

recommend limiting to solutions that can be implemented in 10 weeks or less.

4. Proof of concept: A limited scope implementation to determine if a solution will meet a

customer’s requirements.

5. Workshop: An interactive engagement conducted on a customer’s premises that could

involve training, briefings, assessments, or demos built on the customer’s data or
environment.

Consulting services may be offered in-person (i.e., onsite at a customer’s location or a partner’s
facility) or virtually (i.e., via teleconferencing, web conferencing, remote implementation, etc.).
Partners offering virtual consulting services of types assessments and briefings, must also
publish at least one in-person consulting service of the offer type implementation, proof of
concept, or workshop.

Eligible partners

SI Partners must prove their expertise in delivering quality solutions for Dynamics 365, Power BI,
or Power Apps to list their consulting services offerings on AppSource. Partners must meet the
eligibility requirements below or have a Co-sell offer, for the primary product that the service
offering is related to

APPLICATIONS CRITERIA

Dynamics 365 Sales

Dynamics 365 Marketing Must be Gold or Silver certified in Cloud Business
Dynamics 365 Customer Service Applications competency for Customer Engagement
Dynamics 365 Field Service option
Dynamics 365 Human Resources

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Dynamics 365 Finance
Dynamics 365 Supply Chain
Management
Must be Gold or Silver certified in Cloud Business
Dynamics 365 Commerce
Applications competency for Unified Operations option
Dynamics 365 Human Resources
Dynamics 365 Project Service
Automation

Must have at least 1 successful in-production

Dynamics 365 Customer Insights implementation of Dynamics 365 Customer Insights
with at least 5 measures and 5 segments

Must be Gold or Silver certified in Enterprise Resource

Planning competency and must be the cloud solution
provider for at least 3 Business Central customers
Dynamics 365 Business Central
OR
Must have published a Business Central application in
AppSource

Power BI Must be listed on the Power BI partner showcase

Must be eligible for Advanced Benefits in the Power

Power Apps
Apps Partner Program

Additional Resources and Support:

1. Competency: Microsoft Cloud Enablement Desk https://aka.ms/CEDnominate. The goal of

the Cloud Enablement Desk Guided Experience Partner Nomination Form is to help
provide a Cloud Program Specialist who can help articulate MPN benefits and guide to
competency attainment.

2. MPN Support: Support for Microsoft Partners

3. Power BI: How to get listed on the Power BI Partner Showcase? Begin by submitting a
request to get listed here.

4. Power Apps: Submit your request to become a Power Apps Partner here

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Promotion of consulting services

Business users find and select consulting services offers from the Consulting services section of
AppSource as shown in the screenshot below.

In addition, users discover consulting services via Microsoft product websites, within
product experiences, and through trial nurture streams. Microsoft field sellers may also
recommend suitable consulting services to customers exploring solutions to their business
problems.

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Countries supported
AppSource is available in the following 20 countries.

ELIGIBLE COUNTRIES

Australia Italy Poland

Belgium India South Africa

Canada Japan Sweden

Denmark Mexico Switzerland

Finland Netherlands United Kingdom

France New Zealand United States

Germany Norway

Languages supported

Consulting services offerings may be submitted in English or in the corresponding local

language.

Next steps and what to expect

Listing your consulting service offering on AppSource involves the following:

1. Introduction: Complete the form here and tell us more about your organization.

2. Initiate: Get started at the Partner Center.

3. Validate: Review the partner eligibility criteria for the for the products you would like to
submit the offer for, and ensure you meet the requirements.

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 4. Submit: Submit your offer on the Cloud Partner Portal. Provide the information required
in the instructions. Content submitted in languages other than English, will require
added time to review and process the offer.

5. Review: As a first step in reviewing your offer, our marketing and editorial team will
cancel your offer submission. This is part of our standard review process. We will then
review your submission and make changes to optimize it for readability, grammar, and
effectiveness. This process can take two weeks or more. You may view live offers to
understand best practices.

6. Staging: Your submission will then be staged for review by you.

7. Publishing: Once you and Microsoft are satisfied with the staged content, your
Consulting Services Offer listing is ready to go live on AppSource. The go-live date for
your listing will depend on the country specified in your offering. If the catalog for your
selected country is already live on AppSource, your listing will appear within a few hours.
Otherwise, your listing will remain pending where you may make updates and will appear
as soon as the catalog for your selected country goes live.

8. Support: File a Support Ticket selecting Cloud and Online Services, Marketplace
Publisher, Offer or Product Creation, if you have any questions or concerns.

Additional Resources

1. Creating a new AppSource Consulting Services offer

2. Defining offer settings and storefront details

3. Publishing your first Consulting Service offer

Testimonials from Partners

“Six months in, Inviso has realized a 500% return on our marketing investments into
Consulting Services offers in AppSource. More than 20% of leads have converted to revenue
generating engagements.”

- Martin Wolfram CEO, Inviso Corp

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 “Enlighten Designs is a flagship AppSource success story for you <Consulting Service
offers on AppSource> – with over 210,000 downloads of our App offers, and significant
revenue generated from Consulting offers, we were enabled to geo-expand to new
markets like Canada and land flagship clients like blacklinesafety. “

- Damon Kelly - Founder & CEO Enlighten Designs ltd

“Slalom’s Power Platform training workshops and other offerings listed on Microsoft’s
AppSource have generated new client connections, leads and sold work. We’re pleased
to be a part of the AppSource program and look forward to continued growth serving
Microsoft’s many business customers.”

- Erik Johnson, Slalom Director – Microsoft Center of Excellence

“Consulting Services on AppSource has already helped us broaden our reach. We have
achieved new business sales in territories we’d had little or no traction in prior to publishing
on AppSource, giving us an opportunity to target more potential customers.”

- Graeme Farguhar, Marketing Manager at Equisys

“AppSource has helped Plus gain exposure to the open market and we have received
inquiries about our service offerings from potential prospects that we might not otherwise
have the opportunity to engage with. Participating in the AppSource program has been
very positive, from the initial set-up of our offerings in the portal to the end result of
delivering projects currently underway. We are grateful for the additional business and
lead generation that AppSource offers our consulting services business.”

- Rachael Turner, Partner Account Manager, Plus Consulting, L.L.C.

“TrimaxSecure receives a great experience by participating in AppSource Consulting

Services. It has added a great channel for us to be seen for our services globally and
engage clients we would not normally reach. One example would be an Australian client
(www.coffeerepublic.com.au), we received this lead through Consulting Services on
AppSource. We worked with them to deploy their Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business
Central solution. It would not have been possible for us to get this client if it was not for
AppSource Consulting Services.”

- Hakki Isik, PMP at TrimaxSecure

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“At Chorus IT, being able to list our services on AppSource helps to further strengthen our
partnership with Microsoft and gives our clients the confidence of our capabilities
through the credibility of being listed on Microsoft’s platform. AppSource provides a great
opportunity and a new channel for marketing and selling our services to a wider
audience.”

- Lisa Curry, Marketing Manager, Chorus IT

"The AppSource Consulting Services Offers are a compelling mechanism to list and
market our offerings to our target market. The AppSource Consulting Services Team at
Microsoft have been very helpful in ensuring that our solution listings are fully optimized
for search engine discovery, and has all the relevant information a prospect needs to
evaluate our offerings. Our offerings were featured in Microsoft's AppSource newsletter as
soon as they were published to the AppSource Marketplace. We have found the structure
around the Marketplace Rewards benefits packages valuable already and are excited to
get started on these this year. We also intend to use the Marketplace insights dashboard
in the Partner Center to analyze offer engagement our Azure Marketplace and Microsoft
AppSource listings and evaluate marketing success."

- Farid Jalal, Lead Analytics Consultant, Walkerscott Ltd.

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